Your favorite photo that has the least content

<p>I don't know if this one is minimalist, but it has a lot of sky:</p>

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<p>"you really like that have almost nothing in them"</p>

<p>Not sure if this fits in but I like it. </p>

<p>Sort of a fits in a way to my mind.</p><div></div>

<p>There are a lot of minimalist shots here with water, so here's mine!</p><div></div>

<p>I really do love Gursky's Rhein II</p>

<p>Reminds me of Gahan Wilson's "Is Nothing Sacred" cartoon!<br>

<a href="http://frumheretic.blogspot.com/2008/11/is-nothing-sacred.html">http://frumheretic.blogspot.com/2008/11/is-nothing-sacred.html</a></p>

<p>Laura - I'll see your feather and raise you half a bird.</p><div></div>

<p>Some of the most content-empty photos appear to be filled, but filled with fluff or cliches. Much as I enjoy celebrity pix and paparazzi snaps as guilty pleasures, they're like the Sex Pistols song - pretty vacant.</p>

<p>Most of my whatever-scape photography is in the vein of New Topographics, not so much because I was consciously influenced by the aesthetic but because it seemed to coincide with the way I see things anyway. The urban milieu often presents interesting juxtapositions of patterns and chaotic clutter.</p>

<p>But my efforts at minimalism were consciously influenced by a Michael Kenna exhibit I saw at a local gallery in the early 2000s - particularly the power station photos - and complementary work by Rolfe Horn.</p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/16750413-lg.jpg" alt="skaiku" width="469" height="700" border="0" /><br /> *<br /><p>Over time I've gradually moved away from emulating their austerity through painstaking darkroom/digital manipulations and occasionally heavy vignetting. I began looking for more natural lighting effects and gradation in the sky.</p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17659437-lg.jpg" alt="Stickplace Archer edited in ViewNX2 via single uploader" width="455" height="679" border="0" /><br /> *</p>

<p>The Masahisa Fukase allusions were completely unconscious. I wasn't aware of his name until 2012 when another member mentioned the similarities between some of my photos and Fukase's. But I must have seen some of "The Solitude of Ravens" iconic photos, which are ubiquitous on fan-made YouTube music videos and elsewhere to convey alienation and isolation.<br /><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/16767455-md.jpg" alt="skaiku blu redux" width="680" height="510" border="0" /></p>

<p> </p>

<p>,,,</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>We seem to be missing examples of:</p>

<p><strong>the human body</strong>, classical [ <strong><a href="http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lx726mdmuF1qcojugo1_400.jpg">LINK</a></strong> ] (Edward Weston, Neil's torso) and not so classical [<strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/stromholm_kiss.jpg">LINK</a></strong> ] (from Christer Ströholm)</p>

<p><strong>sexual innuendo</strong> in inanimate materials [ <strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/stromholm_corner.jpg">LINK</a></strong> ] (also from Ströholm)</p>

<p>and, most of all, <strong>the shadow selfie</strong> [ <strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/stromholm_shadowselfie.jpg">LINK</a></strong> ] (again, from Ströholm -- I'm too lazy to open more than one book this morning)</p>

<p>- or shadows of any/all kinds, for that matter. Or am I the only one with a weakness for them?</p>

<p>[Note to all water-lovers above: Beware! water can take over your mind. As background for a composite I was working on, I once went out to get a few shots of ripply water (you know, shallow water with those cool color swirly things that it does with the sun) and came back with almost 700 frames. I think my eyeball had a hangover from the experience.]</p>

<p>Don't forget the nude selfie, Julie.</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photo/199720</p>

<p>If it's good enough, it won't even matter if it's empty or not:</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photo/199717</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>I do so many <a href="/photodb/folder?folder_id=1046919">shadow photos</a> I don't even think about them most of the time. If I haven't done any photography in public for awhile it's often the first thing I'll do - snap shadows from odd angles, often of people moving around. It's more of an exercise, trying to get the reflexes sharpened again, like a musician warming up with scales or playing a favorite warmup piece.</p>

<p>Most of them look like what they are. This one turned out to be a bit more ambiguous.</p>

<p><a href="/photo/17635574&size=lg"><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/17635574-md.jpg" alt="Mugshot for terraforming without a permit" width="680" height="510" border="0" /></a></p>

<p>Sometimes the emptiness is in the feeling the photo leaves inside us.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>And sometimes the emptiness is in the loss of something that we loved.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>[i managed to misspell Stro<strong>m</strong>hölm's name. Three times. Apologies to those confused by the <em>m</em> deficiency. Carry on ... ]</p>

<p>... and there is also the much lauded series of Anthony Weiner's de minimis selfies. :-)</p>

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<p>de minimis selfies</p>

 

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<p>[snicker]</p>

<p>Some are more minimis than others.</p>

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<p>de minimis selfies</p>

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<p>What a fabulous phrase! </p>

<p>These are wonderful! More! More!"</p>

<p>Okay.</p><div></div>

<p>A photo does not need words...it has its own words.</p>

<p>another</p>

<p>@Dave Reichert, that's funny.</p>

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<p>"A photo does not need words...it has its own words."</p>

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<p>That's fine for the passive audience, the true believers, the rubes and marks, or even the dilettantes like the apocryphal story of the emperor chiding Mozart over "too many notes!" From the perspective of the audience member I enjoy a mystery and suspension of disbelief as much as the next person.<br /> <br /> But among the company of fellow practitioners it sounds, at best, reticent, shy, uncomfortable. Usually it sounds lazy, the excuse of an unprepared student: "The dog ate my analysis."; "Me caveman, me just press button, me no think." At worst, it sounds like trying to play a shell game on friends, a con conning cons, a one-trick magician who's afraid the next guy will do his trick better. "I am the great and powerful Ozographer! Pay no attention to that man under the dark cloth!"<br /> <br /> I always had more respect for the musicians who happily described their equipment, technique and influences. They were confident in their own abilities and hoped to encourage the next hopeful musician. Hedging information about gear, technique and influences often comes across as a lack of confidence masquerading as unnecessary mystery. I recall a story in a guitar magazine in the mid-1980s, during the Sammy Hagar era, when Ted Nugent quizzed a guitar tech about Eddie Van Halen's setup for the sounds he got on <em>"5150"</em>. Nuge didn't realize the signature sound on "Why Can't This Be Love?" was from a keyboard, not a guitar. For the guitar setup, the tech shared Van Halen's info but told Nugent it wouldn't do any good because the sound was in Eddie Van Halen's hands, not the gear. On the same guitar and gear Van Halen played, Ted Nugent would always sound like Ted Nugent.</p>

<p>The best actors, directors and theater creators I've known and worked with are the same way. The process is rarely a mystery. They analyze, discuss and cuss every nuance of a play in preparation for the performance. They work together and share themselves to create a better whole, while still reserving individualism and personal flourishes.<br>

<br /> <br /> A photography forum that doesn't need words isn't a forum. It's a gallery.</p>

<p>Imagine yourself at home, alone. You're sitting on your comfy couch with your favorite beverage in hand. You reach for a book, the cover of which features a picture and the words <em>Ralph Gibson | Syntax</em>. There is no other text on the dust jacket, either back or inside flaps. The only text in the interior of the book is the publisher (Lustrum) and, in very tiny text, the copyright notice.</p>

<p>You page through the book. <em>As</em> a book, the pictures are seen in layout -- in this case, two-image spreads. This "happens" without your being told to view the photographs in this way. Gibson's images *must* be seen in layout (see the book's title for a hint why).</p>

<p>You look at this pair, which I will call <strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/gibson_spread06.jpg">SPREAD 1</a></strong> (obviously, Gibson gives no title or caption): [ <strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/gibson_spread06.jpg">LINK</a></strong> ]<br>

and more:<br>

<strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/gibson_spread05.jpg">SPREAD 2</a></strong><br>

<strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/gibson_spread04.jpg">SPREAD 3</a></strong><br>

<strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/gibson_spread03.jpg">SPREAD 4</a></strong><br>

<strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/gibson_spread02.jpg">SPREAD 5</a></strong><br>

<strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/gibson_spread01.jpg">SPREAD 6</a></strong></p>

<p>Is this the most minimal one can go? Where the "content" is in the white genetic recombination of two pictures born only in your, the viewer's, mind?</p>

<p>Julie, I am really, REALLY having trouble making any connection whatsoever between the small image and the large image in each pair.</p>

<p>Is this minimalist or simply obscurantist? This seems to me more of a puzzle than anything else.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>